Porcelain Mask
by M.L. Shards
Summary: He just wants someone to understand... PRiS referenced .Oneshot.


Well...it's a oneshot...sorry...

I love Beetleborgs so much but have yet to bring myself to write anything longer...sorry :(

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He bit his bottom lip as he played back the tape for the hundredth time that day. It was all so strange…he couldn't fully grasp it.

They'd just…told everyone…just like that, as if it was no big deal…

He paused the tape, rewound a part of it, and played it back again.

"_Silver!"_

"_Black!" _

"_Pink!"_

"_Blue!"_

"_Yellow!"_

"_You've gone too far Astronema!"_

"Unbelievable," he sighed as he rewound it again and played it over. That was his favorite part of the tape, the role call. He'd never done that before…well not to the same extent.

His sister had been watching the news when this news (live at the time) had aired exactly one year ago. She had started taping immediately once she'd realized what was inevitable. The first part was slightly sketchy as to what had been going on if you didn't know circumstances, but she'd caught the important parts on tape.

He had to admire the people standing on the building above the crowds. They'd risked a lot by sticking their necks out like that. They'd risked everything and had been surrounded by a mini media frenzy ever since.

Would he ever be able to do that?

He put the remote down and shifted so he was leaning forwards on his stomach, elbows on the ground, chin resting on his fists. The Space Rangers were pretty cool, costumes a little flimsy for his liking mind you, and they didn't have a comic book, but they did have one thing he didn't.

They'd been chosen by someone other than themselves.

Well, so he thought.

He'd never met them per say, so he really had no clue, but it was doubtful that Flabber had a cousin in Angel Grove that had an affinity for brightly coloured spandex and sci-fi shows…

He rewound the video again.

"_Pink!"_

"_Blue!"_

Had he really done that much good in Charterville? Was a team of superheroes really helpful in such a small town?

Seriously.

The Beetleborgs were cool and fought bad guys and stuff, but…they also were the reason there were bad guys in the first place, and the property damage was huge. Then again, increased tourism kind of made up for it in a small way.

They were still the cause of all of it because they had been selfish.

But all the weird stuff they'd gone through must make up for something…I mean…five years ago he'd gotten turned into a half cat type thing…the only way the rangers could top that was if they'd managed to get baked into a giant pizza, which of course was highly unlikely…(right?)

He was almost fifteen and the problem he had helped cause when he was thirteen was still haunting him…and the town…and his sister…and his best friend and…

Well, just a lot of people…

The tape moved forwards to interviews conducted a few hours later with each of the rangers. A blonde and brown haired man was trying to back away from the TV camera and the Yellow ranger had tugged him forwards. The Pink ranger, a young Asian woman had her hand pressed to a camera lens off to the side as it appeared to be a big fan trying to peek at her chest…

A young blonde woman was clutching onto the Silver ranger apologizing profusely to the camera, over and over, nearly bawling as she held onto the Silver ranger who tried to keep cameras away from her, but did sign a small boy's baseball hat as he held it and a permanent marker up.

"_It's pure chaos in downtown Angel Grove," _the reporter announced and Drew stopped the tape studying the blonde woman carefully. She was a bit off to the side, so he didn't get a great angle of her face but he felt his heart go out to her.

He was honestly sorry for what he'd done to and was working to amend it.

Thought it would be easier to blame Jo since it was here idea, but the leader in him wouldn't let him do it and he ended up wallowing in self pity, watching old newscasts on rainy days, just wondering what life would be like, about all of the "What ifs?"

What if that reporter had disclosed the Metallix identities? Would he have been able to handle it with the same amount of class the rangers had? They didn't look too much older than him…

What if Nano or Heather were just slightly more observant than they admitted? What if the Beetleborgs Metallix could get the Crustaceans back into the comics? What if they didn't have powers anymore and he didn't have to worry about the town's safety on top of everything else that comes with being a teenager?

Some days when he began to feel a bit too cocky from a victory as Chromium Gold, his humble-meter, kicked in and sorrowfully reminded him that the Crustaceans weren't good villains, they were perfectly genius with a few internal issues. Sure they didn't have their cartoonist anymore since Les had decided to go back to jail, but a year later they were still there and still eluded the Beetleborgs.

The Beetleborgs hadn't even been able to defeat the Magnavors on their own; Nukus had pretty much done that…

What kind of leader was he? He couldn't even lead his team to one big victory…

Some days he'd go onto the internet and try to find out the names of the Space Rangers, old newspaper articles, etc. The odd time he'd end up hitting an interview with a Justin Stewart who had apparently been a good friend of all of the rangers and he'd look at dozens of fan mail addresses and websites and consider writing them.

But why would they believe a fifteen year old claiming to be a superhero from a comic book?

It sounded ludicrous even to him, so he never did.

Just to ask how they dealt with everything.

"Drew! We got to go!" Jo hollered running down the stairs nearly falling down the last two as she did.

"Where to young lady?" came their mother's voice, "It's pouring outside! It had better be a real emergency!"

Drew picked up the remote and rewound it again.

"_Are you ready guys?"_

"_Right!"_

"_Let's do it!" _

They sounded so dedicated…he wished he could still be like that. Lately he was just tired, just so tired…

"They need our help down at Zoom mom, it's a real emergency! Serious! Roland is coming to pick us up, he's had his license for a while, he's a good driver, and we'll be back before dinner."

The speech was so well rehearsed that Drew almost would've believed it if he didn't know what "real emergency" meant. Their mother had been buying for years.

"Okay fine, god, they should be paying you more for how much you help out around there…"

"Drew! Come on!" Jo insisted.

He stopped the video and ejected it, leaving it hanging in the VCR as he went to search for his rain boots that he was surely going to need and prayed that Beetleborg suits didn't rust…

Sometimes he just wished **someone** was slightly more observant. Sometimes he just wished that they'd never made the wish that brought them to all of this. Sometimes he just wished he could get up the courage to write to one of those rangers…

"I'm coming Jo! Give me a minute!"

If they read the letter and if they believed him...

They'd understand, and that's all he really needed.

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Pretty Please Review???

I'll give you a cookie!


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